The Oxford Inheritance (19 page)

They'd taken Evie's research. All her study into Raleigh and the founding of the college. Sir Walter Raleigh.

CASSIE WALKED SLOWLY ALONG THE RIVERSIDE PATH AND
stretched her tired shoulders. It was early morning, and the winding route had plenty of joggers, but there was still no sign of the one she was looking for.

She turned over the fragments that haunted her, broken pieces that didn't seem to fit.

Genevieve DuLongpre. Rose Smith. Two dead girls, over twenty years apart, with nothing to connect them, except the School of Night.

A rumor. A whisper. An ominous phrase scribbled on the back of a photograph that somebody had planted in Cassie's mailbox. Evie's stolen research.

Rose's death, her mother's disappearance, Evie's suicide: they were all connected. And maybe they were only the beginning.

Cassie caught a flash of motion up ahead on the path. A morning jogger wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, covering the hard icy asphalt in long, steady strides. “Charlie.” Cassie stepped out onto the path, greeting him as he drew near.

Charlie slowed to a stop, running in place. “Miss Blackwell.” He smiled, mock formal, tipping his hood at her.

“I need your help.”

Charlie laughed. “No ‘how have you been?'” he teased her. “‘It's a cold snap in the air.' ‘How about that game on the weekend?' Just straight to the favor, is that how we're going to play it?”

Cassie felt a flash of guilt, but she pushed it aside. “You owe me,” she pointed out.

His smile dropped at the memory. Charlie pulled out his earbuds and stopped moving. “What can I help you with?”

They went to a café away from the usual student haunts. Even so, Cassie
felt anxious, checking over her shoulder, wondering if she was being watched. Somebody had broken into the apartment to steal Evie's notes; maybe they were keeping tabs on her too.

“I need access to police files,” Cassie told Charlie, when they were ensconced in a corner booth with two cups of coffee.

“Well, sure,” Charlie replied, kicking back in his seat. “Just come on down. We leave the keys out on the table, take a look at whatever you want.”

“I'm serious.” Cassie pulled a slip of paper from her pocket and slid it across to him. “These two girls, they were students at Raleigh. They both died. Suicide. I need to see the police reports.”

Charlie looked wary. “What's this about?”

“I don't know yet,” Cassie replied honestly. “But something . . . Something's not right.”

He glanced at the slip where she'd scribbled their names and dates of death. “This one died just a few weeks ago?”

She nodded. “Evie. She was my roommate. One minute she was fine, and the next . . .”

“I'm sorry.” Charlie frowned. “But if you're looking for answers, I'm not the guy for the job. Try talking to her friends, or parents—”

“It's not like that,” Cassie interrupted him. “This isn't just about her. Both those girls were looking into the same thing, a secret society at Raleigh. And I know how that sounds,” she added, seeing his expression. “But something's wrong, I feel it in my gut. They both were digging around into this School of Night, and they both ended up dead.”

She stopped talking as the waitress slammed down their orders: dry toast for her and a full English breakfast for Charlie, the large plate packed with eggs, sausages, and baked beans. Cassie waited until the waitress was back in the kitchen before leaning over the table and continuing. “I know it might sound crazy to you—”

“Might?” Charlie raised his eyebrows as he dug into the food.

“But too many things don't add up,” Cassie insisted. “Evie wasn't suicidal, no matter what people say. And the other night someone broke into our apartment. They trashed the place and stole her research: research that might have pointed to this secret society.”

“Again, might,” Charlie emphasized.

“That's not all. After Rose died, her best friend left the country: she changed her name, took on a whole new identity. You don't do that unless you're running from something, something bad.”

Charlie still didn't appear swayed.

“Look, can you just find the files?” Cassie asked, feeling desperate. “If there's nothing suspicious, then fine. But people are dead. And all of this . . . It feels wrong. I can't just let it go.”

Charlie gave her a long look and sighed. “Fine, I'll find the files,” he finally said. “But not because I think there's anything crazy about it. Because I owe you. After that, we're square, okay? No coming to me asking to be let off speeding tickets.”

“I don't drive.”

“You know what I mean.” He set down his knife and fork, and Cassie realized he'd cleaned his plate in barely a few minutes. “Is that it?”

She paused. “Well, yes.”

“You haven't made all this up as a pretext to see me again?” Charlie grinned. “Because you could have just asked me to go get a beer. You didn't have to spin me a yarn about mysterious deaths and secret societies.”

Cassie couldn't find it in herself to laugh along. “Evie's dead,” she said quietly. “This isn't a joke to me.”

Charlie stopped. “Right. Sorry.” He pulled a few notes from his pocket and threw them down on the table. “I'll see what I can find for you. You got a number I can reach you at?”

“It's on the paper.”

“So it is.” He gave her a nod. “You had any more problems with that Sebastian fellow?”

“No.” Cassie flinched at the reminder. “He took the rest of this semester off.”

“Good. I'll be in touch.” Charlie sauntered out, pausing to exchange a few words with the waitress that made her laugh and swat him with her dish towel.

Cassie stayed a while longer in the corner booth, sipping her coffee and watching the city bustle to life outside the window. It was December now, the skies flint gray, and the streets full of shoppers and students yawning their way to morning lectures. She had one more paper to turn in before the end of the semester, and then there would be four full weeks of vacation break.

She slowly swirled her spoon in the coffee. She was chasing ghosts, in a strange town far from home. But Providence had never been home, not really. She was looking for something to hold on to, and ever since that package had arrived with her mother's name on it, the glittering prospect of the truth had been that one thing, her beacon in the night. But like the horizon, that truth kept retreating, always just out of reach, morphing into a new challenge and more unanswered questions. First her father, then her mother's true identity, then Rose's death, and now Evie's research too.

Now Cassie wondered, looking out at the city. Would she ever find what she was looking for?

The end of the semester came and went in a loud burst of revelry from students
outside Cassie's windows. There were final dinners, and cocktail mixers, and a raucous “bop” in the underground college bar, blasting
cheesy pop music late into the night. Cassie ignored it all until finally, blissfully, the rest of college departed and she was alone on the empty quads, the bell tower ringing out the hour to a silent, deserted campus.

She thought she'd welcome the peace, a break from the demands of her academics and the whispers that still trailed her down the hallways, but instead, Cassie felt on edge with the silence, jittery and out of place. Her attic hadn't felt safe since the day she'd discovered Evie's body, and even though the streets outside in the city bustled brightly with Christmas lights and holiday shoppers, inside the Raleigh walls everything was ominous and still. She found herself escaping the college grounds as much as possible: lingering in the library after her shifts and staying in the café at Blackwell's until closing time, nursing a cup of tea and working her way through thick stacks of books from the fiction department. Some days she didn't see another soul around Raleigh aside from the porters and a few professors like Tremain, who scurried around the grounds with distracted expressions on their faces, no doubt buried in research.

A week slipped by, and then two, until Cassie was closing up the library on December twenty-third for the Christmas break. Even the dedicated scholars of Oxford put their studies aside for a few days, although by the look of the reluctance with which they packed up their things and finally filed out of the building, they would have preferred to celebrate among the dusty books.

“I wasn't sure I'd catch you.”

Cassie felt a shock of recognition at the voice even before she turned. Hugo was on the steps outside, his hands in his pockets, a chilled flush on his cheeks.

She hadn't spoken to him since spending the night at his house; she'd assumed the imposition was an event not to be mentioned again. “Hi,” she replied, awkward. “I didn't know you were still in town.”

“I just popped back up for the day. I had an appointment I couldn't miss. And then I remembered you might be working tonight. Walk you back?” he offered. “Unless, of course, you have other plans.”

Cassie shook her head. “No plans.”

She fell into step beside him, heading back toward Raleigh. The streets were busier than usual, all the high street stores open late for last-minute shoppers. “I often wonder, what's the point?” Hugo noted with a wry grin, watching a woman struggle under the weight of a clutch of paper bags. “Half this stuff is doomed to sit in the back of a cupboard somewhere, gathering dust.”

“It's the ritual of it all,” Cassie agreed. “Gift exchanges, dinner, the big game. In America, at least,” she added.

Hugo smiled. “Here we have the Boxing Day football. Where everyone sits around getting drunk and bickering about old grudges until you all can't wait to get out of the house.”

“Is that what it's like at your house?” Cassie asked, curious. For the last decade, her experience of holidays had always been as an observer, seeing flashes of other families as she worked overtime shifts in stores and restaurants.

“Not quite,” Hugo replied. “This year, it's all political strategy and planning. The general election's coming up in May, and that's the only thing on the agenda. Uncle Richard has half his advisory team camped out at Gravestone.”

“Do you think he'll win?” Cassie asked. It was odd to her, the way Hugo spoke so casually of his uncle's campaign for the most powerful position in the country. A different world, where power was as automatic as breathing, something to be grasped, tangible, not a distant vague dream.

Hugo let out a sharp laugh. “He better. Otherwise family occasions will be a nightmare.” He paused, then corrected himself. “No, I don't mean that. Uncle Richard would be a good prime minister. He's been working toward it as long as I can remember. Practically my whole life. And now it's getting closer, do or die—you can understand why everyone's a little on edge down there.”

“What about Olivia?”' Cassie asked, remembering the fire in her eyes when they'd talked about politics that night at the Union.

Hugo sighed. “She loves it. She's down there pitching in right now, image consulting, ideas for reaching out to the younger voters. I can't think of anything worse.”

“She'd trade places with you in a heartbeat, you know.” Cassie didn't know where her words came from, but it was too late to take them back.

Hugo stopped walking. His gaze met Cassie's with a curious look of recognition. “I know,” he said slowly. “I've told them all a hundred times, she's the one suited to carrying on the family name. She could run a small country; half the time I think she already does. But they're all so set in their ways, they won't even hear of it. Women have never been the ones to take the stage in our family. They make good marriages, then stay in the background, steering things from behind the scenes.”

“It sounds positively Elizabethan,” Cassie joked, as they started walking again. The bright lights of Ahmed's kebab truck came into view, and without discussion they moved to take a place in the line.

“I wish I was laughing.” Hugo gave a self-deprecating sigh. “Listen to me, complaining. I'm lucky, I know. I just wish . . .” He looked down at Cassie with a moment of sudden intensity. “Do you ever feel like the past has wrapped its chains around you and won't let go? That everyone else's decisions keep dragging you back, until you can't even see which direction to turn?”

“More than you'll ever know,” Cassie replied with a ghost of a smile.

Hugo paused. “I just wish I could be left alone to make my own mind up, for once.”

“What would you do?” Cassie asked. She turned to the vendor and ordered, remembering Hugo's choice from the last time and waving away his offer to pay. Food in hand, they walked back toward Raleigh. “I mean it,” Cassie continued, picking up the question she'd asked before. “If you had no parents, no family making demands. What would you do? Who would you be?”

Hugo was silent for a moment—so long, Cassie wondered if she'd asked the wrong thing. “I'd like to travel,” he said quietly. “Not the way
they do it, luxury hotels and tours, but just see the world for a while. What's out there. I'd quit this stupid doctorate. I always thought . . . No, you'll think it's stupid.”

“Go on,” Cassie urged him, strangely curious now. She wanted to know his answer, who he was hiding underneath the privilege and charm.

“I wanted to be an explorer when I was younger.” Hugo looked bashful, more self-conscious than Cassie had ever seen. “There are still parts of the world where people have never stepped foot, can you imagine? Jungles and rain forests and mountain ranges. To go where nobody else has ever been, be the first to ever lay eyes on something.” For a moment, his face was lit up in the dark, full of youthful enthusiasm, and Cassie caught a glimpse of the boy he'd been once, wide-eyed and curious, before this sardonic, jaded persona had slowly taken grip of his soul. Then, just as swiftly, the self-deprecating mask slipped back into place. “I suppose it doesn't take Freud to analyze that one,” he added. “Wanting to strike out to the ends of the earth, away from family and duty. It's rather clichéd. What about you? Who would you be without family pressures? Or are you not so weak as to buckle under their grip like me?”